This project is no longer recruiting.

What is PALS-UK?

PALS-UK is a whole class structured paired reading intervention that aims to improve reading fluency and reading comprehension. It is delivered by teachers to the whole class for 35 minutes, three times a week. It is centred on pupils working together in pairs to engage in four activities: partner reading; retell; paragraph shrinking; and prediction relay.

This trial will see teachers deliver the programme to Year 5 classes over 20 weeks.

Who is leading this project?

The project is led by Dr Emma Vardy (Nottingham Trent University) and Professor Helen Breadmore (University of Birmingham). PALS was originally developed by Douglas Fuchs, Lynn Fuchs, and other researchers from Vanderbilt University. The PALS-UK programme has been adapted for the UK context by Dr Vardy and Professor Breadmore. 

What will this project look like in your setting?

If allocated to the intervention groupAs part of a Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT), settings will be randomised into either the intervention or control group. Settings in the intervention group will receive the programme being tested. , Year 5 teachers will attend one day’s in-person training in one of the project regions (North West, South West or the West Midlands). The training will cover the theoretical background to the programme, how to train pupils in the four PALS-UK activities, how to pair pupils, and advice around the selection of reading books.

Teachers will then spend four weeks training their class in the PALS-UK activities and then the remaining 16 weeks delivering PALS-UK. All sessions are 35 minutes, three times a week in place of their usual reading lesson content. Year 5 pupils will need access to a range of high-quality, engaging books that will provide each pair with an appropriate level of challenge. If intervention schools think their existing stock of books is not sufficient, then a selection of books will be available to purchase and keep at the subsidised price of £50.

Intervention schools will be charged a nominal fee of £75 per teacher towards the programme costs. Schools allocated to the control groupAs part of a Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT), settings will be randomised into either the intervention or control group. Settings in the control group continue with their usual practices and help provide a comparison to measure the intervention’s impact. They are usually offered a monetary compensation as thanks for their contribution. will continue with business as usual and will receive £500 for completing all evaluation activities. This payment could be used to access PALS-UK at the cost of £350 at the end of the trial.

Both intervention and control schools will be asked to complete some evaluation requirements during the project. Exact evaluation requirements will be set out in the information materials if you express an interest in this project.

Who can take part?

• State primary schools with Year 5 pupils in England (excluding Isle of Wight & Isle of Scilly).
• Schools that are not currently delivering similar interventions that may conflict with the trial. This includes schools taking part in another KS2 EEF reading/​writing or literacy trial (including Power of Reading and Fluency.
  Focus), Oak National Academy AI, or a research school evidence into action partnership over the school years 2025/26 and 2026/27.
• Schools who have NOT used PALS-UK or received training on PALS-UK previously.

Reading attainment is a priority in England. Being able to read well is key to accessing learning across the curriculum. The KS2 national curriculum assessments 2024 showed that 26% of pupils did not meet the expected standard in reading, this rose to 38% for disadvantaged pupils (DfE, 2025).

Peer tutoring and the teaching of reading comprehension strategies, both key components of the PALS-UK programme, have moderate to high effects and high effects respectively in the EEF Teaching and Learning Toolkit (EEF, 2021). There is also evidence that reading fluency is important to reading proficiency because it frees cognitive resources from effortful word recognition to focus instead on comprehension (Higgins et al., 2021; Rasinski et al., 2011; Swanson & O’Connor, 2009). 

The first EEF efficacy trial of PALS-UK had a low security rating due to disruption caused by COVID-19. The second EEF efficacy trial found that children who received the programme made, on average, an additional two months progress in reading compared to children in the control schools. It was suggested that this progress was driven by improvements in reading comprehension and in the rate and accuracy of reading fluency. As a result of this evidence, PALS-UK is one of the EEF’s Promising Programmes.

This third trial is an effectiveness trial, designed to test whether PALS-UK can deliver similar results when implemented at scale, under real-world school conditions and with a larger, more diverse sample of pupils.

This programme will be evaluated by Manchester Metropolitan University through a randomised controlled trialAn RCT is used evaluate an educational programme by assigning settings to one of two groups: the intervention group, who receive the programme or the control group, who continue with business as usual. This ensures that any differences in outcomes can be confidently attributed to the programme, providing a robust estimate of the impact and contributing to the evidence for what works in improving educational outcomes.. The evaluation will be an effectiveness trial meaning it will test the impact of PALS-UK on pupils’ reading attainment in circumstances that are as close as possible to everyday conditions. It will also evaluate the impact of PALS-UK on oral reading fluency, oral reading comprehension and pupils’ engagement with reading. The evaluation includes a follow-up assessment of the impact of PALS-UK on pupils’ KS2 reading scores.

Schools have a 50% chance of being allocated to the intervention groupAs part of a Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT), settings will be randomised into either the intervention or control group. Settings in the intervention group will receive the programme being tested. (receiving the PALS-UK programme). Schools allocated to the control groupAs part of a Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT), settings will be randomised into either the intervention or control group. Settings in the control group continue with their usual practices and help provide a comparison to measure the intervention’s impact. They are usually offered a monetary compensation as thanks for their contribution. will continue with business as usual and not receive the PALS-UK programme. An implementation and process evaluationAn IPE is used to understand how and why an intervention has (or has not) been successful. Data is analysed to explore programme quality, reach, adaptation and differentiation, as well as setting fidelity and responsiveness to the trial design. will be conducted alongside the impact evaluation to explore how schools implement the programme, and their perceptions of PALS-UK.